"It reached an altitude 4,000ft above the original test plan's maximum altitude.That is how confident we are about the aircraft. Now we have to download all the data. There will be another flight early in the new year," says Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn.

"The White Knight Two, Scaled Model 348, made its first flight on 21December 2008. Pilot for the flight was Peter Siebold, Scaledâ€™sDirector of Flight Operations, and the copilot was Clint Nichols, alsoof Scaled. The 1-hour flight explored handling qualities at altitudesup to 16000 ft. We were very pleased with the results of the flight andlook forward to continued testing in the new year."